Today one of my favorite families came for a visit. The kids were behind on their check-ups, but this wasn’t too surprising. Their young mom was recently diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and was working her way through surgeries and chemo. The length of time since our last visit made me worry that mom’s health kept the kids from their routine visits, but upon entering the room … [Read more...]

Well, it's official. The American Board of Pediatrics has officially jumped the shark. Faced with the reality of thousands of pediatricians refusing to buy the American Board of Pediatrics MOC program, they've taken a page from Big Pharma: direct-to-patient advertising. When Big Pharma can't convince doctors to prescribe an expensive or useless product, they create a flashy, … [Read more...]

Like many of my fellow pediatricians, today I read the three page letter written by American Board of Pediatrics CEO David Nichols. It was a full day seeing patients and it took me nearly three hours to finish it. The letter was so upsetting I couldn't handle reading it straight through. I'd start reading and my stomach would turn, I'd start to despair about the future of … [Read more...]

Shhh. I think this is supposed to be a secret, but this Wednesday at the super-elite AMA House of Delegates meeting in Chicago, where only the mostly highly connected and AMA devoted doctors get to attend, they actually stood up for us. It is now AMA policy that the AMA opposes mandatory ABMS recertification exams.
Crazy, right? News of this random act of fortitude … [Read more...]

To the American Board of Pediatrics:
I took and passed my recertification exam in Washington State last fall and would like to express my sincere gratitude to your organization for setting up more hoops for pediatricians to jump through under the guise of helping us stay up-to-date. The first hurdle was the exam application and the second was the testing day experience, … [Read more...]